Daily Archive for May 9th, 2007

Photographing Flowers - Digital Photography Tip of the Week

Published
by
Chris
on May 9, 2007
in Digital Photography Tips & Info
. 0 Comments

The old saying is April showers bring May flowers. Today I offer a couple tips to help you capture the beauty in those flowers.

1. Try to avoid full sun. Shooting in full, midday sunlight will produce high contrast photos with distracting shadows. If you have to shoot in these conditions, try to use a diffuser on your flower.

2. Use the Macro mode of your camera. Using Macro mode on your camera (or a dedicated macro lens) will let you get in close to capture some of the finer details of the flower. (example)

3. Change your f-stop. Adjusting your f-stop can make the difference between a single bloom in focus (example) with a small f-stop (large lens opening) to capturing a large variety of flowers in focus (example) with a large f-stop (small lens opening)

4. Get down low. Photographing your flowers at their height will present more pleasing images than shooting down on to them.

5. Get down really low. If you are shooting taller flowers, try to get down below the bloom and shoot up into the sky. This will frame your flower on a nice blue background, assuming your have a cloudless day. (example, shot with the camera almost on the ground)
As with all things photography, most importantly, have fun.

Until next time, happy shooting.

Nintendo on the latest ‘technical divide’

Published
by
Graham
on May 9, 2007
in Computer News
. 0 Comments

From TechRepublic:

Great work is being done to narrow the gap between the technical haves and the have-nots across the planet. At MIT, Professor Nicholas Negroponte seeks to equip every child in the developing world with a laptop. In Kenya, the government is supporting assembly of inexpensive PCs as part of university curricula, ultimately designating those computers for distribution throughout the African continent.

At the same time, on the most granular level, I wonder if a similar technical divide exists inside your own home. One person is probably expected to provide solutions when it’s time to install the wireless network, redirect the satellite dish, or retrieve a lost document. The have-nots sit and wait.

Internet encyclopedia to list all 1.8 mln species

Published
by
Graham
on May 9, 2007
in Computer News
. 0 Comments

From Reuters:

From apples to zebras, all 1.8 million known plant and animal species will be listed in an Internet-based “Encyclopedia of Life” under a $100 million project, scientists said on Tuesday.

The 10-year scheme, launched with initial grants of $12.5 million from two U.S.-based foundations, could aid everyone from children with biology homework to governments planning how to protect endangered species.

“The Encyclopedia of Life plans to create an entry for every named species,” James Edwards, executive director of the project which is backed by many leading research institutions, told Reuters. “At the moment that’s 1.8 million.”

U.S. schools may join inexpensive-laptop project

Published
by
Graham
on May 9, 2007
in Computer News
. 0 Comments

From TechRepublic:

The nonprofit One Laptop per Child project said on Thursday it might sell versions of its kid-friendly laptops in the United States, reversing its previous position of distributing them to only the poorest nations.

“We can’t ignore the United States. … We are looking at it very seriously,” Nicholas Negroponte, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology academic who founded the project, told analysts and reporters.